Union receives Motsoeneng’s application to Constitutional Court

Motsoeneng is continuing his fight to escape paying the legal costs of the journalists he fired in 2016.

Trade union Solidarity on Friday said it had received papers from the legal team of disgraced former South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who is continuing his fight to escape paying the legal costs of the journalists he fired in 2016.

In May, the Supreme Court of Appeal made a punitive cost order against Motsoeneng. A group of journalists, who became known as the SABC 8, were fired after complaining of Motsoeneng banning the airing of violent protests in the run-up to the 2016 local government elections.

The journalists went to the labour court, which subsequently ruled in their favour, and they were reinstated.

Solidarity’s head of labour law, Anton van der Bijl, said Motsoeneng was merely “postponing the inevitable” by approaching the Constitutional Court.

“He is playing a cat and mouse game with the courts, but he will back himself into a corner yet again,” Van der Bijl said.

Motsoeneng was fired from the SABC after a new board was appointed last year. A parliamentary inquiry found he was at the centre of the near collapse of the broadcaster.